Mr. Woodcock

The lazy comedy Mr. Woodcock almost skates by on star power, but the notoriously troubled production shows the seams between credited director Craig Gillespie and the man who directed three weeks of reshoots, David Dobkin (Wedding Crashers). Seann William Scott plays John Farley, a self-help author who can't take his own advice when his mother (Susan Sarandon) gets a new beau. Yep, it's Mr. Woodcock (Billy Bob Thornton), the gym teacher who made Farley's youth hell. Amy Poehler squeezes a few laughs as Farley's manager, and Thornton could make the phone book witheringly funny, but Mr. Woodcock never finds its comic rhythm.